GOTM 04 - First Spoiler (starting continent)

[Icarex]

As said before I played adventurer class. I could have done without both the extra settler and the worker, but those two archers were priceless

Only problem with taking on Alex early was that Victoria got lots of room to shake her big behind. I had a small window of opportunity, but I never got my nerve up to attack her. In the end she proved to be an ally to trust.

 

[JerichoHill]

Just because one takes adventurer doesnt mean were skilled.

Its my first emporer game. I would rather play it and learn something than constantly be behind (as I would be without the bonus) so that the next time there's a monarch or emporer level gotm, I can play contender without bonuses.

dont hate on the adventurers

 

[mboza]

Some people say that GOTM's are often easier than a normal game on the same level. Not this one though, I should think. Compared to the test-games I played with the same settings:
- In this game I only got one hut, and it was baddy: six barbarian warriors popped out.
- The AI settled very aggressively in my direction.

I managed to found Hinduism and Judaism and build Stonehenge as planned. What didn't go so well: just as I had built my first settler, Alexander built Thermopylae on the likely spot (west-west-west-west-southwest).

I then founded my second city west-west-southwest of Thermopylae and started culture-bombing it. As of 500 AD, I still only had two cities though.
So I think it's safe to say that I should have waited with Stonehenge (or skipped it), to get the second settler out faster.

Egypt beat me both to the Great Library (25 AD) and Music.
After that, I was holding on for dear life.

Similar story for me, Thermoplyae was built just before I finished my first settler in 2200 BC, and although I admit I missed an opportunity to whip, it would still have been touch and go to get my settler into place and settled first anyway. I built on a coastal hill to the NW, and got it through culture eventually, but for a long while I was on two cities with no copper. But I did then get stonehenge, parthanon and GL in Dehli, and oracle and colossus, confuscianism and its wonder in Bombay, so the culture was pouring out. Missed out on pyramids because I took so long to get masonry, which was probably a mistake. But Alex adopted my religion, so was peaceful.

At the start I settled in place, and built warrior, warrior, work boat, work boat, warrior, settler. The last warrior was to escort the settler, as the others were on the far side of the continent. I also worked both the clams immediately for the extra commerce, so founded hinduism in 3200 BC. Once the settler was built I was struggling for more city sites, and the only other settler I built went around for years on a galley, finding nothing. And there was no rush for the first worker, as there were only two forests close by to chop. But with the second city built I then built two workers and chopped my way through the early wonders while waiting for all the worker techs.

For comparison:
4000 BC, settle in place, start fishing
3440 BC Buddhism founded in a distant land
3200 BC Found Hinduism, start BW
3000 BC deploy first workboat
2920 BC Judaism founded in a distant land, still researching BW at 90%, found no huts at all.
2200 BC Missed opportunity to whip settler for 2 pop, and Greeks have just founded city 1 south of marble, next to copper.
Decide to build on coastal hill NNW of greek city, with marble, corn, silk in radius,
1720 BC Built Stonehenge
1200BC? Build Oracle for CoL, use missionary to spread confucianism to Alex, and we both convert. Then research alphabet, and trade writing and CoL around, to keep my alphabet monopoly for years to come.
675 BC Build Parthanon, have finally traded to catch up all missing techs, Saladin builds pyramids.

Incidently, having submitted my first attempt relatively early for me, I decided to give it another go. This time Alex founded Sparta at the two marble site, even earlier, but I did get the wheel out of a hut.

 

[ScubaRoo]

Here's a question...

Why did most eveyrone let alex grow?

There's also the issue of gaming style and expected plans for this scenario. If we were playing a different civ then I'm sure that the vast majority would have taken an aggressive stance toward Alex. As India, though, there is (for me anyway) a preconceived idea that you are going to have a peaceful game and win through spread of religion and dominant culture.

If you decide to attack Alex early on you have to be confident that you can divert enough resources to deal with potential invasion, or decide to go all-out military and take the war to him. This means that you sacrifice progress towards culture, religion, growth or anything else non-military.

As other people write-up their starting strategies I can see that there is more to it than a black and white war or no-war approach. I guess that there are plenty of us who are learning that India can be "assertive" with its neighbours while heading toward cultural growth, but it takes a leap of faith to commit to a war when you really want to be doing something else.

That's my thoughts anyway - maybe others have a more reasoned arguement but for me it's a simple case of cowardice!

 

[Gunner Jones]

Unfortunately I fell at the first, blundering into the spoiler thread before starting the game.

However, in the interests of education I've been attempting see if there is a way of reliably beating Alex to the marble / copper city site on Challenger class without a complete abuse of hindsight. For example, hanging around Alex in the hope of stealing a worker I've allowed myself. Moving my initial Settler West is something I would have never considered so would be an abuse.

Glorously subjective I know - but I've failed in every attempt. As a kind of QSC challenge has anybody else tried this?

 

[whb]

I had a second go (not submissable) at the contender game, and with the right approach it seems as though it's not so scary for a moderate player like me. The trouble, of course, was knowing the right approach in advance.

Fish -> Bronze seems like it was the trick this month, and resisting the temptation to steal a worker (it's more important to keep the warrior and get some early contacts to the West because Alex will have you barred off on the peninsula, so there's no exploring or contacting past him when the first war starts).

then Hunting (for the deer), Masonry (for marble), Wheel (to link bronze), Writing. (With a bit of shuffling to make sure you have Writing when the Oracle completes)

Settle three cities - capital in place, city in the grassy area 2sq south of bronze (can also reach 2 deer squares - lots of growth and lots of hammers), plus furs/fish/silver/overlapped-deer in the south.

Stonehenge and oracle built in capital. Oracle gets CoL and Confucianism. Shrine gets built pretty fast in Bombay. Parthenon chopped in Bombay once marble linked. National Epic in capital, Caste System, scientists. Heroic Epic in Bombay. The silver/furs city adds two important happiness bonuses.

From there, it's just a matter of axes and (after researching Alpha and trading for Iron) swords to conquer 3 Greek cities. If you can do it in fairly swift succession (easy since he only has archers), the cash income can make up for the corruption while the barracks get chopped. A short pause to assimilate and get Macemen, and Bureaucracy, and then back to conquering Alex.

A few of the GPs were prophets, they got joined to Bombay making it cash and hammer rich; the capital focussed on science GPs.

Like I say, that was my experience of trying it the second time around. Pity the first time around wasn't so good!

 

[ADHansa]

A lesson i learned that i will use in later game is that you can outculture an opponent city early by building Stonehedge (at least in this game i could). Don't build stonehedge in your startcity, save it and build a city 2 squares away from the resource you need, then build Stonehedge in that city. You will steal the resource and soon your opponent might even revolt.

 

[DonaldKipper]

Fish -> Bronze seems like it was the trick this month, and resisting the temptation to steal a worker (it's more important to keep the warrior and get some early contacts to the West because Alex will have you barred off on the peninsula, so there's no exploring or contacting past him when the first war starts).

then Hunting (for the deer), Masonry (for marble), Wheel (to link bronze), Writing.

I would almost always get wheel after bronze if its needed to hook it.
I like to get 2-3 axes asap as they can be upgrading with easy barb kills and i generally just feel much safer.
You can get to city Raider 2 or combat with cover? (+25% against archers) quite quickly (skipping barracks early) - i like to mix and match upgrades so i have good units 'in the field' and good units for the first attacks on cities

i still sent a warrior past alex to explore

 

[JerichoHill]

I forgot to mention that I had gotten the Great Library too. The only beginning wonder I missed was the Parthenon. Getting the pyramids was a huge boon to my science rate...plus because of running scientists specialists, I popped two great scientists (and one prophet). Had to recheck that, one of those guys may have come in like 510 AD...dont shoot me

I was wrong about my economy...its last, but my rate of increase has been higher than anyone else. Saladin (on our continent) is going to fall to last place soon.

Even though my economy aint top notch, I'm still the leader in science, to the point that Victoria wont trade techs with me because she fears I'm becoming too advanced. Bummer...well, that will change sooner rather than later.

I thought about it last night, and I will not be attacking Vicky. There's someone else that deserves some payback...

 

[mike p]

A lesson i learned that i will use in later game is that you can outculture an opponent city early by building Stonehedge (at least in this game i could). Don't build stonehedge in your startcity, save it and build a city 2 squares away from the resource you need, then build Stonehedge in that city. You will steal the resource and soon your opponent might even revolt.

I generally find that the culture from Stonehenge directly, properly placed, can be more important than the culture from the obelisks it gives you. The GPP are tasty gravy.

If you can chop it out in one of your border cities it will quickly expand your borders and overwhelm nearby civs. Your strategy is sound. In this specific case, Stonehenge and founding a religion meant that my initial city's borders had already expanded to encompass the bronze by the time it was revealed.

Fish -> Bronze seems like it was the trick this month, and resisting the temptation to steal a worker (it's more important to keep the warrior and get some early contacts to the West because Alex will have you barred off on the peninsula, so there's no exploring or contacting past him when the first war starts).

then Hunting (for the deer), Masonry (for marble), Wheel (to link bronze), Writing. (With a bit of shuffling to make sure you have Writing when the Oracle completes)

I'm assuming you only waited on the wheel because the bronze wasn't immediately within your cultural borders? Fishing was the best way to get additional commerce for your start, so I agree it beats a beeline to BW.

I disagree on saving the warrior for contacts. Taking away his worker and adding him to your empire is a double win. Contacts are nice, but not critical, until you get alphabet.

I also feel like the map was set up to minimize the importance of bronze working early. There were very few forests to chop by the starting location and if you built your second city to the northwest you are next to the bronze, if you built it to the south west, you have access to the crappy Bronze On Ice as a consolation prize. Which, as it turns out, you didn't need because iron was so close. And I love swordsmen against the AI so IW right after BW is a priority - might be different in multiplayer. Though I opted for meditation, priest hood, fishing, hunting, and archery first. YMMV.

 

[whb]

I'm assuming you only waited on the wheel because the bronze wasn't immediately within your cultural borders? Fishing was the best way to get additional commerce for your start, so I agree it beats a beeline to BW.

Hunting was before the second city was even founded near the bronze (timed to match when the first worker was built - I didn't steal this time. I did some rough sums and decided it was worth building the camp before chopping). Actually I just remembered I got Masonry from a hut. I might have been tempted to research it before the wheel (research wheel while bronze and marble are being mined and quarried) as the parthenon race seemed more important than 6 turns delay on invading Alex.

I disagree on saving the warrior for contacts. Taking away his worker and adding him to your empire is a double win. Contacts are nice, but not critical, until you get alphabet.

This was the problem I ran into in the first game - I went for Alpha fairly early (to trade CoL around), but because I'd had that worker-stealing war with Alex I didn't have enough contacts to trade with, and I was only in the process of attacking Alex so I hadn't got through him yet. This left me several techs short in the trading compared to how I did without the worker-stealing. It also cost me a lot of time hooking up the bronze as I was having to cope with a stream of archers from Alex before I was quite ready to. Without the worker war, I had the contacts, Alex kept the barbs back so I could have almost no military until I wanted to invade him, and I could even get the parthenon by chopping in the marble city. Then full-on building of axes, and Alex got a surprise.

Perhaps it comes down to the fact that Alex is already hobbled by the map not giving him bronze (and for some reason always has early tundra cities slowing him down), so worker stealing wasn't necessary for crippling..

 

[Greebley]

My solution to the "Alex problem" was all out war. I settled my second city right on the copper (so 2 squares between Bombay and Sparta (i.e. I settled 3 squares away) and I built Barracks and then Axemen using tree chops to help. In 1280 BC I attacked Greece. In 350 BC, I had conquered the last Greek city and Alex was no more. My third city near the horses was my last built city until after the war was over.

The down side was no religions or wonders for me. I also wanted to test rapid expansion with the idea of letting science go down in the short turn to see if I could get an advantage in the long term by spamming cottages. My science did in fact hit negative gold at 0% science for a turn. At 500 AD the cottages are starting to turn things around and my economy was beginning to improve again. Also note that during the war I was able to run science at -40 or so gold per turn since taking Cities gave me gold. I only hit zero after taking out 2-3 Barbarian cities after the war as well as founding another.

[Edit: This was Contender BTW. Forgot to mention that important point. Edited a few other comments]

 

[kingjoshi]

Played Contender.

Well, things started off well. I found Hinduism in Delhi. I had my warriors out there and they survived the lions. I got the fast workers and they started chopping a settler. I had been producing stonehenge along the way.

And as my settler gets done, I see Alex taking the Marble. I'm hurt as I have little/no room to expand.

I decide to found a city to the west of it on the next marble. Maybe culture bomb Thermopylae. I wanted CoL as I was also going to build the Pyramids and with Representation, I could boost research.

But wouldn't you know it, ONE barbarian warrior comes and razes Bombay. A lot of good the strengthen fortified warrior did. I don't get the Oracle. I'm hurt trying to figure out how to regroup.

By the time I could get another Settler, Alex plopped another city just north of Thermopylae. I build axes to try to take barbarian cities, but I got beat by Victoria and Alex. My only chance of any expansion was through Alex, but by now, I had fallen behind on research very badly.

I'm trading techs and doing fine and always have something someone else doesn't. And then, all of a sudden, I'm 4+ techs behind everyone.

Beset with such bad luck, I didn't know what to do. I decided to build a army and take one of Alex's city and hopefully hold it. I could see all of his cities because he had my religion (I also founded Judaism). I took over Thermopylae and held fort hoping turns would go and I could continue to build an army and get peace. Nope, 6 knights come out of nowhere and destroy my (City Garrison II) Longbowmen, macemen, crossbowmen and catapults.

Alex would not settle for peace for thousands more years completely pillaging my land. But in the end, in a minor victory, I got the last laugh. As he continued to battle me and ignore other issues, Victoria finished him off and I lasted (with that one city) until 1989CE.

In hindsight, I should've went for Diplomatic Victory instead of attacking Alex. Even though he's known to attack friends, I had no chance to fight a piece-meal war with him. I sacrificied some science and tried to culture bomb that city (just for the heck of it and knowing I would lose) when I should've instead focused on researching techs for diplomatic victory.

Everyone liked me and with my great engineers, I could've built the UN. But I didn't try it even.

 

[friskymike]

Played contender. My initial focus was on getting my economy up and running (via oracle for shrine income, pyramids for represenation and great lighthouse for trade routes), and getting two cities down, which I just barely managed.

I went fishing -> polytheism and managed to pop bronze working from a hut, then went for alphabet. I was running emphasise commerce in Delhi (ie. working the water tiles) for a long time to keep the tech pace up. I chopped everything in sight and micromanaged to the max, leaving no forests for health, but at least managed to found 2 more cities on that little peninsula before Alex blocked me. One city went on the hill to the northwest of the marble, for the defensive bonus and picking up the wheat aswell, the other on the southern coast.

Delhi built stonehendge, the northern city chopped the pyramids, and the southern the oracle (iron working for cheap forges) followed by the parthenon, and delhi later built the great lighthouse normally. I had 3 fast workers out chopping as far as they could and 1 building improvements at home, and I started chopping near Alex's borders first so not to lose those forests in his border expansions.

I was taking big risks - *very* light on defense, I had 3 normal axeman built in there, in addition to my 3 garrisoned warriors and one on worker escort duty. Alex declared on me at one stage, and I managed to beat him off with one axeman, and do some pillaging with my warrior before it was destroyed. He made peace after 10 or so turns.

Isabella declared on me a few turns after Alex did, and stupidly tried to attack an axe fortified on a hill from her galley. I then put a galley on the single coast square she would have to cross with troops, and a galley full of troops died trying to attack that. She was willing to make peace after that. Later I sent across a settler to make a city on a peninsula on her continent as a staging point for a future invasion, but make war on her again to get the spot, by attacking one of her settler pairs (gaining a worker for my new colony).

I've almost explored all of the continent except the english areas as they won't sign open borders with me. Theres a barb city on a hill causing Alex to waste units and production which is nice.

I built libraries as soon as I could and have been running scientist specialist in my 3 core cities for the great people points. Got a prophet for the Hindu shrine, and a great artist popped which went to be added to the city on spains island for the +3 gold +3 bulbs +12 culture. No great engineer but I am working a forge in the pyramids city to try and get one.

My economy is doing well now with 4 cities, representationation and the great lighthouse and I'm beelining towards guilds for knights after metal forging. I was going to take out Isabella, but I don't think shes a real threat so I think Alex will be next...and he still doesn't have iron or copper hooked up which helps
Nobody likes Alex, but nobody likes me either because I've traded with him. But nobody else would trade with me so I had to

Edit: After reading Greebley's post, I think I might have been better warring Alex from the start, I might have got distracted with the wonders which was a lot of hammers not invested in early expansion, but we shall see... I'm teching pretty fast at the moment with libraries, great lighthouse, representation, academy and shrine income. I'll be taking that expansion from Alex soon, hopefully he has some nice infrastructure and cottages for me

Edit: played again for the first time in a week, got some stuff wrong

 

[JerichoHill]

All those forests on tundra meant choppy chop chop to me.

And that Ice City isn't crappy at all!

Bronze and Silver Mine
Fish!
Fur!
Horses!
Deer!

Nice...

 

[Ronald]

contender - first game on emperor

I settled on the spot and sent my warrior to explore.

Build order was warrior, fishing boat, fishing boat, warrior, settler

Research sequence: fishing, polytheism, BW, wheel, masonry, priesthood, writing, alphabeth

With my second warrior I stole a worker from Alex, that maybe prevented him to settle towards me. So I got a perfect 2nd city site on top of the marble.
I was thinking if I should settle on or next to the marble and decided that on the marble is best. My reasoning is, that I have enough high production hills nearby, so the extra 2 food are more worth than extra 2 hammers. Also at size 1, the additional production is extremely helpful.
Bombay became later my military production city with heroic epic.

I founded hinduism, but switched only very briefly to hinduism as state religion. As soon as I could trade, I abandoned my state religion to get better deal possibilities.

In order to have a chance for any win, more cities and land is required. The logical first victim is Alex. Bombay could produce axemen and swordsmen in 2 turns, so it took not very long to get a sizable army.

In the meantime Delhi built the pyramids, the GL, and Colossus.

Just before AD I started to first war against Greece. I faced only archers and lots of chariots. My swordsmen captured the cities and my spearmen defended well against the chariots. It was an easier war than I expected. I thought on emperor the AI would be a stronger opponent.

Here are soome screenshots:

 

[culdeus]

Ronald, why did you settle on the marble? That extra commerce from the improved tile + hammers is too much to pass up don't you think?

Also, why not raze thermo? It's encroaching bombay big time on your map.

 

[JerichoHill]

I agree with Culdeus. I would have razed Thermo, why keep it? And I agree about the Marble too, that commerce is really needed on emporer!

 

[Ronald]

Ronald, why did you settle on the marble? That extra commerce from the improved tile + hammers is too much to pass up don't you think?

Also, why not raze thermo? It's encroaching bombay big time on your map.

As said above. The scarce resource here is not hammers, its food. There are 5 more hills + the copper mine for additional hammers.
Settling on marble gives 2f3h1g immediatley a quarry takes 9 turns and then gives 5h3h.
Commerce is a more serious issue. Since I have silk with 4g and only 1f food becomes even more important.
The only good alternative would be to settle south of the marble, but that consumes a precious grassland.
You can do a calculation of the two possibilities and I believe that marble comes out better.

Thermophyle could have been razed. The consequence would be a very long distance between Bombay and Athens. The current site is not great, but still acceptable. Bombay of course gets priority in using the right tiles. So I think a suboptimal Thermo is better than no Thermo.
To prove the point, have a look at Thermo a few hundred years later -edit: oops removed picture because of spoiler information. But believ me the city became quite productive.

 

[Perugia]

By the way, does anyone know which advances can be researched by which great persons?

It is a subset of all the techs you can research and depends on the type of great person and other techs you know.
I used a spreadsheet that I found again here in the Pre-game Discussion (I had earlier downloaded a similar one from another thread but couldn't work out what it meant).

The Pre-Game Discussion gave me the method to predict that I could sacrifice a Great Prophet to research Civil Service and jump 2 Eras .


BTW you founded the city not on the river. In CIV3 there was an advantage to founding on the river (no granary needed). In CIV4 I am not so sure. Is there any benefit to the city apart from the trade benefit of being connected to the trade network via the river?